"You met me at a very strange time in my life." – Fight Club

Q&A Sunday – The Science of Sleep

I have a sleep disorder called Night Terrors. I’m pretty sure I’ve had it all my life. The fancy Latin name is Pavor Nocturnus. Although I’m the one with the disorder, it’s Buck who is the real expert on Night Terrors. He’s been dealing with mine once or twice a week for as long as he’s known me. He claims it’s how he’ll die, from a heart attack in the middle of the night, brought on by one of my Night Terrors.

To those who are lucky enough to have no idea what Night Terrors are, they are NOTHING like nightmares. I’ve read a lot of misinformation regarding NT on websites supposedly run by doctors; the misinformation I”ve found claims NT occurs in children and that they grow out of it, or that it’s difficult to wake the child up, etc. This is incorrect, and I prefer to go by the American Medical Association’s information. According to the AMA, NT is triggered by a chemical in the brain that causes it to misfire. I saw a show on PBS back in the 1980s that suggested this sleep disorder works much like epilepsy and could possibly be some form of it.

But I don’t read about it very often, and as a matter of fact, I don’t even think it about anymore. It’s just there, I live with it, and as a result, Buck lives with it too.

In a Night Terror, you’re wide awake — you could drive a car if you had to — except for the fact that your eyes are seeing something surreal. You can’t be woken up from a Night Terror because you’re already awake, but you can (usually) be reasoned with until your brain finally abandons the idea that whatever it thinks it sees isn’t really there at all. Then whatever it is your seeing slowly evaporates. I often think that the callers on Coast to Coast AM who phone in about things or people in their bedroom are actually just victims of NT and don’t know it.

My experience with it is this: I wake up, open my eyes, and see something that is utterly amazing or bizarre right there in my bedroom, or wherever I happen to have fallen asleep. Sometimes it’s terrifying (like a stranger in the room), but more often it’s just bizarre: a giant Redwood tree branch hanging from my bedroom ceiling; my little Pomeranian in two places at once; a swirling purple cloud dipping around the room and then being sucked up into the ceiling fan. Sometimes I just watch these things until they slowly fade away, other times I’m startled and freaked out by them and I scream.

Unlike a person who’s having a nightmare, a person who is in the middle of an actual NT is wide awake and cannot be easily convinced that what they’re seeing isn’t really there. It’s hallucinating, is what it is. And hallucinations always suck, but what we argue about, that is to say Buck and I, is for whom does it suck the most? The person who is hallucinating or the person who isn’t hallucinating?

Me: As you know, I couldn’t do this Q&A yesterday because I had to spend the day in contemplation, willing the Red Sox to win the pennant.

Buck: And praying. You spent most of the day praying.

Me: Willing and praying are the same thing. To me, anyway.

Buck: What prayer did you say? And to what god?

Me: Naturally, I can’t tell you about the process as it’s extremely personal to the extreme that if I were to tell you, you might be struck by lightening or suddenly be covered with boils, etc. But I will say this: Jesus is a Red Sox fan. He proved that early in the season by once again smiting the Evil Empire and officially signing Johnny Damon’s one-way ticket to Hell … But enough of Johnny Damon’s sucktitude, it’s off-topic. Let’s get started with Q&A Sunday even though it’s already Monday and I probably won’t get this posted until Tuesday. I thought this week we’d talk about sleep disorders. Because I have one.

Buck: Oh, you have one. Yessir. You certainly have a sleep disorder.

Me: Well, my view of my sleep disorder is totally one-sided and it pretty much means nothing to me. You’re actually the expert at this point, which has made me less qualified than you to discuss Night Terrors.

Buck: You may not be qualified to speak about them but you’re certainly qualified to cause them.

Me: True.

Buck: As a matter of fact, some might say you’re a professional.

Me: I am. I’m a professional of … I don’t know what.

Buck: You’re cutting edge on the sleep frontier.

Me: Okay, now that we’ve established my qualifications, or lack thereof, let’s talk about your qualifications. My Night Terrors are not really terrifying most of the time, but you —

Me: Yes, you’re the one getting terrified now. At this point in my life they no longer terrify me because I know —

Buck: Because you know I’m there to talk you down.

Me: No. Because I know that what I’m seeing is not real.

Buck: NO YOU DON’T. No you don’t. You still insist that what you see is real. Not as bad as it used to be, but it’s still pretty bad.

Me: Well …

Buck: Okay, you want my introduction into the world of serious large-scale sleep disorders? The first time was still the most terrifying. For me.

Me: I’m sure it was.

Buck: My introduction to Night Terrors was the very first night that I slept with you, and of course you have to have a room absolutely pitch black in order to fall asleep — if there’s the tiniest strain of light coming from anywhere it apparently goes into your eyes like a laser beam.

Me: Well it does. It effects my sleep pattern, which is probably part of the problem —

Buck: In other words, it was so dark I couldn’t see my own hand in front of my face at that point. That’s how dark it was. So in the middle of the night, I wake up to you STANDING ON THE BED and whispering, Sssh! Quiet!

Me: [laughing]That’s disturbing in itself.

Buck: So I start scrambling around in the dark trying to find my glasses — not that I could see anything anyway — but then you whispered loudly, or sotto voce if you will, THERE’S SOMEBODY IN THE ROOM THERE’S SOMEBODY IN THE ROOM …

Me: [laughing]

Buck: [laughing]And then you go, He’s right behind you! And I’m in a full on panic and you start yelling, HE’S GOT AN AX! At that point I almost peed myself. [laughing]I was just waiting to get hit by an lunatic wielding an ax —

Me: Well it just so happens I remember that particular incident, probably because you made such a big deal about it, and the guy was in a total suit of armor from the Middle Ages, and the ax was one of those battle axes that —

Buck: It doesn’t matter what kind of ax he had, I was just expecting to get hit with it.[laughing] I was reaching around in the dark because I didn’t know where anything was, and I finally made contact with a lamp and turned it on and there’s nothing in the room but you, standing on the bed looking at me with some strange look on your face, some otherworldly look. AND YOU HAD NO IDEA WHO I WAS.

Me: [laughing]

Buck: You really didn’t know who I was, it was like you’d never seen me before in your life. And that’s when I realized that … when you’re like that you really can’t …I had to bring you back. When you’re like that, you don’t know who to trust.

Me: It’s true. That is a problem for me. I don’t trust anyone when I’m like that, I couldn’t even trust my own mother at that point, because things are shifting and changing and what you thought was one thing turns out to be something else entirely.

Buck: When you’re like that, I feel like I’m just a voice to you, a disembodied voice. I might as well be a voice coming out of a UPS package. [laughing] You look at me like I’m a talking package telling you, It’s okay, it’s okay —

Me:[laughing]

Buck: The thing is, afterwards when it was over, that first time? You were very nice and explained to me, Oh by the way, I have night terrors and I-wake-up-screaming.[laughing]

Me:[laughing] I don’t know … I suppose I forgot to mention it.

Buck: And that’s when my hair turned gray.

Me: [laughing]

Buck: Seriously. That’s when my hair turned gray.

Me: I’ve since given up on it but when I was younger I used to think every episode was the last. For like, twenty years I considered each episode to be isolated. It wasn’t till I grew up — mentally grew up — that I realized these night episodes aren’t going anywhere, they’re here to stay. So, looking back … I suppose I didn’t think to bring it up … because I still wasn’t expecting it to happen. At that point in my life, I didn’t know myself yet. Not very well, anyway.

Buck: We’ve gone through a lot of them where you didn’t realize who I was, and that makes it harder. You didn’t recognize me. You’ll look me right in the eyes, you’re totally wide awake, but you’re in some other … parallel universelooking backat me in the real world. It’s very hard on me, because I have to try and bring you back down to earth, but the whole time you don’t know me or trust me.

Me: Yeah. Like I said, it’s a problem.

Buck: You think I’m trying to fool you.

Me: Yeah, I do. It’s because when you’re in that … realm … you’d believe anything is possible at that point, because the stuff that you’re actually seeing is so un-be-lievable, it’s just surreal is what it is, so you can’t trust anybody because anybody could morph into somebody else, or something else. You honestly don’t know what’s real and what’s unreal. When I’m in a Night Terror, I honestly feel I can only trust myself. As misguided as that may be.

Buck: Well, luckily I was already familiar with Filipino Nightmare Disease prior to meeting you, which was backed up by that one episode of St. Elsewhere that featured it. But before seeing it on St. Elsewhere, I’d already read in the New York Times about Filipino Nightmare Disease —

Me: In Thailand it’s called Nightmare Death.

Buck: — whatever. It was Filipino Nightmare Disease when I first read about it, and that’s what they called it on St. Elsewhere. The New York Times was reporting that some Vietnamese Boat People had died from it, which was news because up till then it was only known to occur in the Philippines. Basically, people would die of fright in their sleep. The article I read said they weren’t classifying it as heart attacks, it said they died of fright, and they had physically aged overnight.

Me: I believe it.

Buck:They’d actually agedover night. Much like what happened to me with my hair after I met you.

Me: Listen, I did not turn your hairwhite. Your hair did turn white over night, but it didn’t happen till you were in your forties and I remember exactly when it happened, and Max saw it too, but it was when we were on vacation in the Grand Canyon and I am not getting into this now. It is completely off-topic. Besides, I’d need Max here to back me up because the story of your hair turning white is so —

Buck:Anyway. The problem with Night Terrors is that you’re awake. You’re wide awake. That’s where the problem is.

Me: I know. And because I’m awake, it’s so hard for you to tell me I’m not seeing what I’m seeing. And it’s not always terrifying. I think the reason you may think that is because I don’t wake you up for a lot of them. On the easy ones, I don’t wake you up.

Buck: They all wake me up.

Me: No. Since we’ve lived here in this house I’ve had a few involving that purple swirling thing that dances around the room and disappears up into the ceiling fan. That one’s actually quiet beautiful. Disturbing, but beautiful. And it doesn’t make me scream, and that’s why you don’t wake up

Buck: Don’t say you don’t wake me up. You’ve had a lot of episodes that you don’t even remember the next day.

Me: That’s true. I hate those the most. The ones I don’t remember.

Buck: When I tell you the next day, it’s news to you.

Me: I hate when that happens. ‘Cuz when you tell me the next day, it certainly sounds like something I’d do, it rings a very faint bell in my head and then I sorta remember it. The way a night of heavy drinking slowly and unfortunately comes back to you throughout the morning. Which, combined with a hangover, is just hell. That’s why I don’t drink. Stuff that comes back to you slowly, like drunken memories and the nocturnal shenanigans of a Night Terror, just suck. It sucks.

Buck: But after all of your Night Terrors, the ones you remember and the ones you don’t, you just lay back down and fall into a deep sleep while I lay there with my heart pounding and my eyes wide open. I lie there and wonder what the hell just happened.

Me: Right. Right. I could see where that would suck also. And I’ve never bothered to get any help for it, but the only help I was offered involved driving up to Boston and staying at a sleep clinic. That didn’t interest me. So I just load up on sleeping pills or cough syrup instead. Sometimes that works for a few hours, so I can stave off the Night Terrors long enough to get some rest. But, you know, I’ve developed such a tolerance for sleep aids over the course of my life, that they very often don’t work. But they’re still better than a sleep clinic. What the hell could a sleep clinic possibly do for me?

Buck: A sleep clinic would kick you out. [laughing]

Me: WHY?! [laughing]

Buck: Because you’d frighten them, too.

Me: It’s not always frightening. I keep telling you that. Sometimes it’s just plain run-of-the-mill disturbing and weird. Like that time last winter when you were right next to me reading, and I woke up and saw Timmy in two places at once. He was sitting by the window AND he was across the room standing by the bureau. That sucked. But I didn’t scream. I just rolled with it. I didn’t know which one was the real Timmy, so I just watched them both till one of them finally evaporated. But it took a long time on that one. It was like five minutes till the real Timmy was the only one there.

Buck: He does that all the time.

Me:[laughing]

Buck: He’s a remote viewer. You just caught him mid-viewing.

Me: The remote viewers on Coast to Coast don’t view the same room they’re in from two angles. They remote view a distant location. Like Bin Laden’s cave, or wherever.

Buck: Well, nobody ever said Timmy was good at it. He doesn’t have it down yet, you can still see him. [laughing] He’s working on it, though.

Me:The point is that whether or not Timmy was remote viewing, I didn’t scream when I caught him doing it. Like last spring when I woke up and saw a guy in our courtyard watching me sleep. He looked like Ben Vereen, and he was smiling at me like Ben Vereen smiles, but I somehow knew he wasn’t Ben Vereen. I didn’t scream, I knew he wasn’t really there, so I got up and went out there to prove it to myself without involving you. I didn’t approach him exactly, but I got fairly close and I reasoned with myself that if Ben Vereen was really there in the courtyard the dogs would be barking. Since they weren’t barking — they were just looking at me like What the hell do you want? — I knew he wasn’t real. So I told him to leave, and he eventually evaporated.But that took a while too. Longer than Timmy’s remote viewing.

Buck: Well, I’ve probably helped you a lot with the whole thing. My bedside manner has changed drastically over the years. Before, I was very nice and tried to bring you back slowly because I was afraid I’d cause a brain hemorrhage. Now I just yell at you to stop it. And you always do. But when you do, you have a strange look on your face like, Oh, I’m back in this world, but you always look disappointed.

Me: It is disappointing, because in the Night Terror World at least there was a possibility.

Buck: Of what?

Me: I don’t know. That purple swirling things can appear and then disappear? That dogs can remote view so poorly that it’s possible to catch them doing it? I don’t know. But it’s disappointing to come to the sudden realization there’s no chance of that actually happening. Plus, I hate to be wrong. One thing that’s never changed about it is that each time I think this is the time I’ll be right…Timmy really is in two places at once! Then one of him evaporates, and I’m wrong yet again. I hate being so very wrong. It’s embarrassing.

Buck: I’m thinking of starting a support group for people like me. I’m calling it Terror-Anon. Basically I’ll take people like me and make a reservation for them to stay at a Motel 6 for the night, so they can sleep soundly through the night undisturbed. [laughing]

Me: [laughing] That will be a club for nerds. Why don’t you call yourselves Nerd-Anon? Or Cowards-Anon?

Buck: What’s cowardly about wanting to sleep through the night?

Me: You’re all cowards, afraid of facing the aged break-out star from Roots and sweet little dogs who can be in two places at once.

Buck: You’re right, I am. I’m afraid I’ll die from you screaming about Ben Vereen coming at me with an ax. And the coroner will look at my white hair and the expression of horror frozen to my face and say, Must’ve died from Filipino Nightmare Disease.

__________________________

Tomorrow:Analyzing Buck’s dreams, aka. a world of Snakes, Nuclear Holocaust & the last supper painting in which the disciples have all been replaced with Buck’s high school girlfriends and buck is forced to watch it all while gagged and tied to a chair in the audience.

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Whew! This is weird and fascinating. It makes me sad. I want to know more– how did your parents react to this when you were little? How did your kids handle it? Have you ever had one of these terrors while you were staying at a hotel? Did they kick you out? Was Ben Vereen nice? Did he dance?

Weird that we both wrote about traumatic sleeping stuff today. My night time terror is merely cat snot. I feel much better after reading yours.

After I posted this, Buck said that no one ever believes his Filipino Nightmare Disease research, so he supplied me with several links that, for whatever reason, I can’t seem to add to my post. So here are some for anyone who is interested.

@ MBMQ – A lot of my relatives are somnabulists, or they suffered from other sleep disorders, so my parents weren’t totally shocked or frightened by mine. But they did feel bad about it, and I can remember being a little kid and them running into my room already in full-comfort mode. They’d started calling to me from way back in their own bedroom, telling me everything was okay. Looking back on it, I feel sorry for them to have woken up to that.

I don’t think I ever woke my kids up with my nonsense, because by that point I understood it enough to try on some level to get a grip early into it and keep my voice down. I don’t actually know. But my daughter is such a sound sleeper she needs two alarm clocks to wake up, one of my sons was/is a sleepwalker, and the other has bouts of night paralysis. Sleeping over at our house is a happening, let me tell you. All I can do is chalk it up to bad genes, very faulty wiring.

I have had it happen to me in hotels many times. Nobody ever complained, and if they had I would have blamed it on Buck. I also had it happen to me once on a long bus trip to Upstate New York. The people around me just wrote me off as just another nut, because the guy across the aisle from me was talking on an invisible cell phone.

It’s not so weird that we both wrote about traumatic sleeping stuff today — Timmy remote viewed you, and told me what you were writing about.

Fascinating stuff! When I was 4 or so I woke up one morning, sat up in my bed, and watched a snake crawl out from beneath my covers. Boy, did I ever freak out! Later in life I found that I occasionally sleep walked, and I regularly talked (and sometimes yelled) in my sleep all the way into my teens (my mother always accused my of cussing in my sleep, something I never did awake).

My boy, when he was two, would often wake up, eyes wide with fear, and just shaking. We felt terrible for him and couldn’t figure what was going on until our pediatrician suggested he might be having night terrors. That meant nothing to me until now.

Good news is he (and I) both seem to have outgrown that craziness. Thank you for sharing, otherwise I never would have had any idea about this stuff!

Night terrors are really P.T.S.D. on steroids! They seem to be tied to the calendar and the full moon. and tend to be worse under stress. Often a remedy for that is have Buck put a piece of tin foil folded like a hat on his head. Then wear it in the back yard with his traveling bathrobe on and black socks. At that point instant relief should come for him as he is now a receptor of good karma, and the night terrors will be blocked by the hat and transferr of those night terrors to the neighbors is not unheard of.

@ Stu – Thanks for your interesting comment. Buck loves your snake story, because that’s basically what he has nightmares about. I’m so glad both you and your son both outgrew the night time crazies. Glad, and a little jealous.

@ Wally – (I moved your comment over here) I love your comment, it’s hilarious. And on a serious note, it’s an excellent suggestion for Buck. I’m working on a tin foil hat for him right now.

When Sarah was little and she would get a fever she would open her eyes and say really weird stuff. Once she was sleeping in the living room and opened her eyes and said all the trees were falling on the house. I kept telling her to close her eyes and go back to sleep which she finally did and then I woke her up for real. This happened almost every time she would get a fever. It scared me at first but then I got used to it. She never remembered a thing when I would wake her up. It was very strange.

I myself will wake up in the night and see crabs walking on my skylights. I know they aren’t really there. I know I am wide awake. I usually just turn over and don’t look at them and then when I finally do, they are gone. It doesn’t scare me It’s just sort of creepy.

Oh, I wrote something new on my blog today about the new knees I’m supposed to get.

Oh God, I so understand the need to sleep in total darkness. Some moron on the next street has a gigantic spotlight, and I do mean gigantic, that goes on at dusk and stays on all freaking night. Naturally it shines right in my bedroom window and is so bright I could read by it, which I don’t do because I am so pissed off I do nothing but lie there wishing evil upon him.

I keep urging Craig to shoot out the light with his air rifle but he won’t do it dammit. Actually the light is so freaking big, an airgun couldn’t possibly damage it.

Also, a talking UPS package is one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.

@ Joan – Thank God none of my kids ever had high fevers like that, I lucked out, but I can fully identify with how disturbing that must be. New knees? Awesome! I’m going over to read all about it.

@Susan – Lol on messing with Buck. But it is amazing that he’s always dealt with my night time craziness so well, because quite honestly I don’t know if I’d be able to deal as well if I was in his shoes. In his typical good nature, he’s always approached it with humor; he has a “whatever” attitude about most everything. Which is how I get away with writing this blog.

@ Barbara – You should paint your window panes black. I did this when I was in high school with poster paint from the drug store. It’s not attractive, but it works. You’re probably like me about the light from the clock, too. I have to turn my clock face down on the nightstand because the light is so annoying (even when it’s on “dim”), it actually wakes me up.

Don’t discount the Filipino Nightmare Disease! You can’t really tell by looking at me, but I’m half Filipino. My son, the one we suspected of having night terrors, is the only one of my three kids who looks even remotely Filipino (more than me as a matter of fact).

My mother is always telling me stories about crab boys, unicorns, priests with lizard tongues, and other crazy happenings in the Philippines… maybe all those stories are more than old wives’ tales, they are the result of Filipino Nightmare Disease!

And Barbara… I used to work graveyards. Aluminum foil over the windows is how I blocked the light of the sun. It also blocks the invasive brainwaves of aliens from what I hear.

I tried turning the clock face down but alas just enough light leaked out to drive me nuts. So now I cover the face with a thick towel.

By the way, summer is the worst time for the light thing because I can’t stand an air conditioner in my bedroom–the noise makes me crazy, uh, crazier–so I have to open the windows. Well, you can imagine the cursing that goes on…

STU: I like the aluminum idea–in addition to blocking alien brainwaves, it also eliminates the necessity of wearing a tin-foil hat. Good thinking.

@ Stu – As it turns out, you are a wealth of untapped information that we are particularly interested in: crab boys, lizard priests, and just about anything connected to the Philippines. I hope you’ll be regular visitor here.

@ Barbara – I also use a thick towel, but mine is to cover the digital numbers on the cable box. That freakish light from the cable box would illuminate the entire room if I allowed it. I can’t even stand the garish light lfrom the little nightlight in the hall seeping under the bedroom door. It’s hideous, and even that is enough to wake me up.

I kick in my sleep, not kung fu style but mainly knocking the blankets off the bed. One time I had some sort of nightmare where I said outloud, “I’m not afraid.” The next day I retold it to my family that I couldn’t remember the nightmare just what I said and like a decade later they still repeat that phrase as some sort of joke whenever someone brings up sleeping, dreams, nightmares, blankets, pillows, anything related to sleep they will bring it up and it will cause a round of laughter at my expense.

actually, i don’t even hear two alarm clocks. (I took a nap yesterday with my cell phone/alarm in my hand and still Paul had to yell at me to wake up.) it’s getting bad. i have to be yelled at to get out of bed in the morning

never mind we have blackout shades, 540 count cotton sheets, a down comforter and many comfy pillows.

oh, and no, I’ve never had a night terror. Oddly though, the closest I ever came to it was a night I spent in your room when you guys were away somewhere. I woke up in the middle of the night and thought there was a man standing in the corner behind the door. It was the coat rack.
and i had sleep paralysis once. It was terrible. I was sure I was being abducted.
I also woke up once to a spider crawling in my ear.

@ Brian – Your sympathies are always misplaced, as evidenced by your rank in the Stella’s Fellas army. It’s ME, ME, ME you should always feel sorry for.
@ RagingStorm – I think the “I am not afraid” is hilarious. If I was in your family I’d probably pay to have it stenciled onto your bedroom wall when you weren’t home. Or better yet, on the driver’s side door of your truck.

@ Cody – I used to sleep abnormally deep like that … till I had you. Even though you slept all night from the time you were born (you were one of those trick babies that make you think all babies are easy), I woke up constantly to check on you, pulling your toes to make you move. I couldn’t go back to sleep till I had you crying a little. Then I could sleep just fine. I was like Shirley MacLaine in Terms of Endearment.

HYSTERICAL!! Poor Buck, I TOTALLY know how he feels. I’m 29 now but when I was younger I was subjected to my little brother who has RIDICULOUS night terrors. All three of us kids did, but myself and my older brother grew out of it. Others always look at us like we were CRAZY when we recounted stories about our nighttime antics. Of course, as kids you just roll with things some times and come to accept them as normal. I remember this one time though when my little brother (9 at the time) woke up [I describe it as the time he was possessed by Chuckie the Doll]. He sat up in bed [unbeknownst to me (until I whipped around in fright later) bc I was sneaking in some late night clandestine reading with a flashlight – under the sheet] and he started talking in this netherworld dead small raspy zombie voice saying (I SEE YOU! I SEE YOU! over and over). SCARED the living s***T right out of me!!! He loves that story, I’m convinced (to Buck’s point) that it gave me the one gray hair I’ve had and still have to this day (I was 16 at the time)!

@ Nadia – Wow, I’m glad to know we aren’t the only ones. And that’s the thing about growing up like that, you take it for granted and don’t realize there are households where nothing ever happens at night. Your little brother story was a riot, I loved it!

[…] the mutation that allows me to get by on virtually no sleep. Fortunately, I haven’t inherited any really weird stuff, which I believe to be a conflict between human and alien genes, fighting in a never-ending […]

[…] the mutation that allows me to get by on virtually no sleep. Fortunately, I haven’t inherited any really weird stuff, which I believe to be a conflict between human and alien genes, fighting in a never-ending […]